SYN258, XenDesktop Monitoring BakeOff with #jariangibson

Shane and Jarian dive into what options there are natively available and then what third parties are needed based on your requirements. Used Dell and Nutanix to host the test environments.

Director and HDX Insight, are more Helpdesk focused and some very basic health checks and troubleshooting. Good first level management console.

ComTrade MP, management packs within SCOM, so if you use SCOM for monitoring then it makes sense for you as the next step. Has a cool map,

Smart-X Control Up, no databases, no appliance or servers. Works with RDS, View and Citrix XA or XD and has a great Realtime logging and dashboard, it had a very light agent that runs in RAM so it can be easily rolled into non-persistent desktops/servers and agents. Cool feature is taking a screenshot from their session which is nice if you see something whacky.

Splunk with UberAgent, Extrahop, has a backend database that is based on size and not agents and UberAgent is free addon for metrics of the desktops or servers. Extrahop can see the wire data and see what is behind the curtain and is really easy to read and understand (My 4 VDINinja Extrahop Rules, Green is good, Red is bad, too much of something may not be good and slow round trips are bad mmmmkay). With this trifecta of tools you can see user, machine and wire details that can help prove it isn’t your fault and if it is we are sorry.

EG Innovations EG Enterprise, the agent goes on everything to see what matters and it can even do change tracking and baseline performance analysis. This is a whole standalone system. Has a good dashboard that makes sense and can make a topology like ComTrade.

Goliath Technologies MonitorIT and HyperThetical, would be a Splunk competitor because of its SYSLOG and SNMP. There will be new release that will do what EdgeSight Active Application Monitoring as that product dies. Has a older looking console compared to the others.

Lakeside Software SysTrack, has been used to do pre-VDI assessments and then can use it from that point forward to monitor the new desktops and servers and it can integrate with AppDNA and Project Accelator. Can make a custom dashboard which is great for NOCs.

Liquidware Labs Stratusphere UX, has a appliance that is imported and uses agents. It is normally used for assessments also just like Lakeside SysTrack software that can be converted.

Shane’s and Jarian’s tips on Choosing A Solution:

Think about your requirements
Match your requirements to features and functionality
Demo several options
BakeOff solutions in your environment
Work with your Vendor so you know what the product can and cannot do
Post BakeOff feedback internally and to the vendor